About this Poem

“Since moving to Oklahoma, and away from the rivers by which I have always oriented, I became interested in dryness—drought, dams, also prohibitions about alcohol. My morning run is along the Arkansas, a river which often holds no water at all, but somehow I have come to love seeing what is laid bare there, and, because the state sells 3.2 beer at room temperature, I have begun to make my own cocktails, another new pleasure. How strangely happy I am, so: this poem of concession.”— Rose McLarney